Eudo shrugged. ‘I assumed she was helping to warm your bed, although I admit she seemed to me a bit fierce-looking for your tastes.’
I glanced at Eithne, who had emerged from the compartment beneath the bow platform. Her mouth was once more twisted into her usual scowl. She must have guessed from the looks they were giving her that we were talking about her, even if she couldn’t know exactly what we were saying.
Eudo laughed. ‘Even Oswynn never glowered like that one does, and she wasn’t exactly an easy one to tame, from what I remember. And now you’re saying you know where to find her?’
‘I don’t, but he does,’ I said, gesturing at Magnus, and introduced him to them, saying merely that he was a ship’s captain from Dyflin, whom Haakon had wronged in the past, which the Englishman seemed to be content with. I also gave them the names of ?lfhelm and the rest of his huscarls, all of whom continued to regard the newcomers with suspicion. Not that I blamed them.
‘You understand, then, why I can’t go back,’ I said. ‘Not now. Not having come this far already.’
‘How do you expect to be able to mount an assault on this Haakon’s stronghold with a single ship’s crew?’ Wace asked.
‘Do you remember when we stole our way into the enemy camp at Beferlic last autumn? There were only nine of us then, and only six when we took the gates at Eoferwic the year before that.’
‘And both times we nearly got ourselves killed,’ Eudo reminded me.
‘No man ever won himself fame without taking any risks,’ I said, repeating the old proverb that was often spoken amongst warriors. ‘What do I stand to lose?’
‘Everything,’ Wace said, no longer caring to disguise his frustration. ‘And this has nothing to do with winning fame.’
He had every right to be angry, I supposed. They both did. They had ventured all this way, hundreds of leagues from the manors they called home, in hope of talking some sense into me, and all for naught.
‘I’ve made my decision,’ I said, tight-lipped. ‘If Robert expects I’ll happily don a penitent’s robe and bend my knee before him, he’s wrong. Besides, you should be coming with me, not the other way around.’
Eudo frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’
And that was when I told them what Magnus had related to me only a few evenings ago. That it was Haakon who burnt the mead-hall that night at Dunholm. That he was to blame, not Eadgar ?theling, for the death of our former lord, Robert de Commines, the man who had in so many ways been like a father to me, to us, who had provided for us and inspired us and trained us in the ways of war.
I didn’t expect them to believe me to begin with, just I had refused to believe the Englishman when he first told me, and so it proved. But I called Magnus over and had him confirm everything I’d said.
‘So Earl Robert was your lord?’ he asked when he’d finished, glancing at us all.
‘He was,’ I answered. ‘A good lord, and a good man, too. He didn’t deserve to die.’ I turned to Wace and Eudo. ‘Unless you’re going to throw me in chains and forcibly drag me back to England, that’s where I’m going. Are you with me?’
The two of them exchanged uncertain glances. They knew as well as I did that this was far from the first time I’d tried to persuade them to follow me on one of my reckless adventures, and knew, too, how that same recklessness had almost been their deaths. And the truth was that, in all the years we had known each other and trained and sparred and ridden and feasted and laughed together, this was one of the most desperate endeavours I’d ever asked them to join me in.
Even if we were to succeed, I couldn’t promise that the poets would write songs of these deeds of ours, songs that would be sung across Christendom for years to come, for this was no glorious battle on the outcome of which rested the fate of kingdoms. Nor could I swear that victory would bring us much by way of riches. But we didn’t even have to succeed. The mere willingness to fight was enough to win ourselves something immeasurably more precious than reputation or glory, silver or jewels, horses or ships, halls or castles, and that thing was honour. Even if this road only led to failure or, worse, death, at least we would have tried. More noble, in my eyes, to meet our ends fighting for a cause we believed in than to refuse the challenge because it was too arduous. Nothing worth having ever came easily.
‘Well?’ I asked, growing impatient, for the longer I waited, the less sure I was what their answer would be. Neither of them would so much as meet my gaze.